kuju | Japanese Countryside Travel Notes

The next morning, the mountain road leading back to the Yamanami Highway was a tunnel of autumn leaves, shining brightly.

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kuju highway1

kuju highway2

kuju highway3 kuju hightland

kuju highway4 kuju mountains view

On the road to Taketa City, I come across a light truck with an elegant English Pointer on its back. The pointer on the loading platform does not look at me easily. He is balanced well on the carrier.

kuju highway5 wow!

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kuju highway7 eye contact

Meanwhile, I arrived at Taketa. I didn’t have enough time to visit the old town (>refer to the post in the near future), so I headed straight to Oka Castle. This castle was the setting for “Kojo no Tsuki” (“The moon over the ruined castle” in English) composed by Rentaro Taki who spent his childhood here. It’s interesting that the admission ticket comes in the form of an old period scroll with a guide map of Oka Castle, but it gets in the way and is inconvenient when it comes to taking it home. Although only the stone walls remain of this mountain castle, the stonework is beautiful and draws a parabolic curve.

oka castle2 entrance

oka castle4

oka castle7 why need complicate design

oka castle9 do not the same thing — Do not the same thing

Since there is no protective fence, you can sit on the protruding tip of the stone wall, but it doesn’t feel like you’re alive. It feels like my lower abdomen is falling out. Those with a strong heart can admire the beautiful Kuju Mountain Range from here. There are several castles in the sky floating in the morning mist in Japan, but Oka Castle, which appears out of nowhere amidst layers of mountains, is a true Ghibli castle in the sky.

I used to think that suspension bridges were built out of necessity, but seeing this made me realize that they were purposely built in places where they didn’t need to be built, just to make people feel scary. Many people walk on the suspension bridge, which looks just like a wide pedestrian bridge. Although the suspension bridge uses fairly thick wire rope, you can still feel some sway. There is a magnificent waterfall that can only be seen from here, but the scale of the view from the suspension bridge is so large that the waterfall feels small.

johgakura bridge

look down from bridge 1

nakatsugawa valley bridge

There are also places in the Tohoku region where the views from bridges are dynamic. Johgakura Bridge in Aomori Prefecture is a good place to stop by on your way to the Shirakami Mountain Range and Lake Towada as above photos. It’s also a good idea to stop by the bridge that spans the Nakatsugawa Valley in Fukushima Prefecture near Goshikinuma on Mt. Bandai.

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suspension bridge2

suspension bridge1

Once you cross the suspension bridge, you will see a building that looks like a haunted house at the festival venue. In front of the house, there was a crowd of people who seemed to be hesitating whether to enter or not. This place holds a spectacle where customers can touch and hold white snakes in hopes of attracting financial luck. I was reluctant to enter, but my companion was blinded by financial fortune and we decided to enter.

suspension bridge6 white snake named toguro

suspension bridge7 white snake named makitsuki

When I pay, the thick curtain in front of me opens and I come face to face with two white snakes. One of them is called “Toguro,” which coils itself on my hand, and the other is “Makitsuki,” which wraps around my arm.” No matter who holds them, these snakes maintain the same posture as their namesake, so these must be their favorite poses. The touch was unlike anything I had ever felt before, neither cold nor warm, and I was filled with the desire to return them as soon as possible. In the end, it was the people at the show booths who were lucky to make money.

Detour

Tonight we will be staying at Kiyasuya in Sujiyu Onsen, but Sujiyu Onsen is also home to a famous public bathhouse “Utase-yu.” The name Sujiyu originally came from the fact that the hot spring ingredients are effective for soothing tired muscles, but the public bath is an ultimate hot spring where the hot spring water is dropped from a height of about 3 meters to soothe the body.